Chilling Near Future Short Story
5 out of 5 stars
So, obviously we all know Andy Weir from The Martian. I also read the novel that followed, Artemis, and enjoyed it (though The Martian is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of book). So, when I saw that Blake Crouch was building a collection of short stories by amazing authors like Andy Weir – I jumped at the chance to listen to them.
First up was Randomize. This book was a fascinating read that didn’t take very long at all. It’s under an hour and right to the point. Quantum computers have been released to the masses meaning that casinos “random” number generation (which is really random) is in jeopardy.
A quantum computer setting up truly random numbers is set up to solve this problem. Except there is one other issue at hand. I won’t give the entire story away, but I thought that Weir did a great job setting the scene, getting right to the point, and writing a chilling and very real feeling near future short story.
Book Description:
Audible narration by Janina Gavankar (True Blood)
In the near future, if Vegas games are ingeniously scam-proof, then the heists have to be too, in this imaginative and whip-smart story by the New York Times bestselling author of The Martian.
An IT whiz at the Babylon Casino is enlisted to upgrade security for the game of keno and its random-number generator. The new quantum computer system is foolproof. But someone on the inside is no fool. For once the odds may not favor the house – unless human ingenuity isn’t entirely a thing of the past.
Andy Weir’s Randomize is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.
Randomize by Andy Weir
Narrator: Janina Gavankar
Length: 50 mins
Series: Forward #6
Published by Brilliance Audio on September 17th 2019
Genres: Technothriller
Format: Audiobook
Also by this author: The Martian, Artemis, Project Hail Mary
Also in this series: Ark, Emergency Skin, You Have Arrived At Your Destination, Summer Frost
